Vietnam’s 2022 CPI rises 3.15%, retail sales up 19.8%

Vietnam's consumer price index (CPI) in 2022 increased 3.15% year-on-year while retail sales of goods and services rose 19.8%, according to the General Statistics Office.

The year’s core inflation went up 2.59% year-on-year, showing that changes in consumer prices have been driven mainly by food, petrol, oil, and gas prices, GSO head Nguyen Thi Huong told a press briefing in Hanoi

The Vietnamese economy has recovered in 2022 from the pandemic-hit year of 2021, with a growth rate of 8.02%, the highest in 12 years.

The GSO said domestic petrol and oil prices have been adjusted 34 times, increasing 28.01% from a year earlier, while gas prices were up 11.49%. Rice prices have fluctuated in line with export prices and market demand to go up 1.22% from 2021. Foodstuff prices increased by 1.62%. Besides, housing and construction material prices climbed up 3.11%.

On the contrary, pork prices reduced 10.68%, house rents went down 1.83% in the whole year due to the pandemic in the first months of 2022, and prices of postal and telecommunications services shrank by 0.37% as a result of lower mobile phone prices.

According to the GSO, domestic gold prices have seen mixed changes in line with the global market, rising 5.75% this year. Prices of the U.S. dollar against the Vietnamese dong hiked 2.09% from last year.

GSO chief Huong told the press briefing that the government, during the year, has ordered ministries, state agencies, sectors, and localities to issue many timely policies and implement concerted measures to minimize adverse inflationary impacts on socio-economic development.

Vietnam's retail sales of goods and services this year rose 19.8% to almost VND5,680 trillion ($240.2 billion). The value is 15% higher than that in 2019, a pre-pandemic year. Sales in December rose 17.1% from a year earlier.